Changing Faces

Or why I have an “Abuja voice”.

So the other day I was meeting with a client. We were deep into the conversation we were having, negotiating project details, when out of the blue the client stops and asks me what school I graduated from. I’m a little taken aback but I tell him immediately, a little proudly even, that I graduated from some Federal University in Bauchi. He seemed surprised and I ask him why he asked the question. “You have an accent so I was just wondering” is what he says. That one sentence is what has sent me down this particular rabbit hole.

As I discussed that meeting with someone later that evening, the person with whom I was having the conversation stated, categorically, that when I am speaking with specific people, clients and the like, I have an accent. I was aghast, I had no idea that this phenomenon occurred, this switch. Eventually, tired of denial in the face of unwavering evidence, I began to call this accent my “Abuja” voice.

This got me thinking. Was it just the accent that appeared when I had conversations with clients or did I, on a more basic level, switch personas depending on the person I was interacting with? Was there another persona that I was unaware of the way I was initially unaware of “Abuja voice”?

Persona is defined as the aspect of someone’s character that is presented to or perceived by others.

Everybody makes a choice about the parts of them that they allow people to see, sometimes the choice is conscious, and sometimes it is unconscious, as in the case of my Abuja voice debacle.

Everybody, though, is changing faces.

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If you are wondering what the point of the story is, you need to understand that not all the times make sense, sometimes not.